As a small and fragmentary work of art, the Processional cross (figs 1 & 2) in the National Gallery of Victoria has not received a great deal of attention from scholars. It has been published only a handful of times, and what has been written about it amounts to only a few paragraphs. Still, within the Gallery’s collection it is one of a small number of works representing the Gothic taste in ecclesiastical art found across Europe in the Middle Ages. The Processional cross was acquired by the Felton Bequest for the Gallery in 1960 from Charles F. Worel in London. It was bought for £1000 on the advice of Felton Advisor A. J. L. McDonnell. At the time, a letter of recommendation was provided by Ludwig Goldschneider, the art historian best known as director of the publishing house Phaidon. He believed that the work was ‘Florentine, close in style to Bernardo Daddi and Maso, but much more so to that of Orcagna’, and suggested ‘It should be attributed to Orcagna’s workshop and dated 1340–60’.1 Leonard Cox, The National Gallery of Victoria, 1861 to 1968: A Search for a Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1970, p. 283. Here, the question of the work’s attribution will be revisited and its iconography interpreted.
The question of authorship
The early provenance of the Processional cross is unknown and nothing about its imagery allows its patron to be identified, although, as Goldschneider rightly observed, it is clearly Florentine in style. After his contribution, the question of authorship remained more or less dormant for a number of decades. It was attributed to an anonymous fourteenth-century Florentine artist by Ursula Hoff when she included it in a catalogue of the Gallery’s Old Master paintings for the first time in 1995.2 Ursula Hoff (ed.), European Paintings before 1800 in the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1995, p. 164. However, in 1997 Everett Fahy suggested the painter might be Bernardo Daddi (c.1280–1348) after all. The late Miklós Boskovits then included the work as by Daddi in one of the volumes dedicated to the artist, in the series A Corpus of Florentine Painting, which he revised in 2001. He gave it a dating between the 1320s and the mid 1340s.3 See Richard Offner & Klara Steinweg, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting [1945], ed. Miklós Boskovits & Mina Gregori, sect. 3, The Fourteenth Century, vol. 5, Bernardo Daddi and his Circle, Giunti, Florence, 2001, pp. 564–8, citing a suggestion of Everett Fahy of 31 March 1997. Gordon Morrison did not discuss the question of the attribution in an entry for a short catalogue of the Gallery’s Old Masters published in 2003.4 See Gordon Morrison, ‘Italy, Florence, Processional cross’, in Ted Gott & Laurie Benson (eds), Paintings and Sculpture before 1800 in the International Collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2003, p. 9. However, the attribution to Daddi was sustained by Andrea di Lorenzo in 2005,5 See Andrea Di Lorenzo, ‘La Croce astile di Bernardo Daddi del Museo Poldi Pezzoli’, in Marco Ciatti (ed.), La Croce di Bernardo Daddi del Museo Poldi Pezzoli: Ricerche e Conservazione, Edifir, Florence, 2005, p. 13. The attribution was also discussed by Dr Felicity Harley in her paper ‘The Florentine Processional cross in the National Gallery of Victoria: a new attribution?’, The Medieval Round Table, University of Melbourne, 3 September 2007. I am grateful to Felicity Harley for discussing her research on the Processional cross with me. and is supported here, with the qualification that a degree of workshop assistance seems likely.
Form and style
On one side of the Processional cross is a Christus patiens image, a representation of the dead, crucified Christ, here shown with the Virgin, John the Evangelist, and a figure at the top that seems to be God the Father, but could possibly be Christ, in three terminal trefoils (fig. 2).6 The identification of the figure in the upper trefoil cannot be determined precisely. While Christ is frequently depicted with a cruciform halo in medieval and Renaissance art, in the fourteenth century God the Father was occasionally also represented this way. An example of this type of depiction is found in the illumination Trinity and Evangelist symbols on fol. 33 of the Book of Hours, called Yates Thompson 13, in the British Library, London, dating to the second quarter of the fourteenth century. Another example is in the illumination God the Father warning Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil on fol. 5 of the Speculum humanae salvationis, called Harley 3240, also in the British Library, dating from the last quarter of the century. It is probably significant that the figure at the top of Giotto’s Crucifix from the Scrovegni Chapel shows the palm of the right hand to the viewer, while no stigmatum is visible. Thus, this figure cannot be the Risen Christ. It seems somewhat more likely, then, that the figures at the top of the Scrovegni Chapel and Melbourne crosses are God the Father in heaven, rather than a second depiction of Christ. On the other side is a Christus triumphans image – an image of a ‘revivified’ crucified Christ – with three Evangelists in the terminal trefoils (fig. 1).7 For discussion of the Christus triumphans (or Christus victor) and Christus patiens types of images, see Hans Belting, The Image and Its Public in the Middle Ages: Form and Function of Early Paintings of the Passion, trans. Mark Bartusis & Richard Meyer, A.D. Caratzas, New York, 1990, p. 143–8; John T. Paoletti & Gary M. Radke (eds), Art in Renaissance Italy, 3rd edn, Laurence King, London, 2005, pp. 50–2; and Richard Viladesau, The Beauty of the Cross: The Passion of Christ in Theology and the Arts, from the Catacombs to the Eve of the Renaissance, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, pp. 41–7, 69, 74 & 112. It can safely be assumed that a trefoil containing the fourth Evangelist has been lost from the bottom, along with the staff on which the Processional cross was mounted.8 Although there is no physical or documentary evidence for a lost trefoil containing an Evangelist at the bottom of the Processional cross, the ubiquitous depiction of four Evangelists in medieval art makes it almost a certainty. While the form of the Christus patiens image follows the traditional format for medieval Italian painted crosses established in such works as Giunta Pisano’s thirteenth–century Crucifix in Santa Maria degli Angeli in Assisi,9 See Belting, pp. 144–5. the Melbourne version seems more directly influenced by Giotto’s Crucifix painted for the Scrovegni Chapel between 1304 and 1306 and now housed in the Museo d’Arte Medioevale e Moderna in Padua (fig. 3). Both show a thin, blond Christ with his head level with the crossbar of the crucifix, the halo present only above the shoulders, Saint John the Evangelist at the right, resting his head in his right hand and God the Father or Christ, above, with a cruciform halo, holding a book while blessing.10 I am grateful to one of the anonymous referees for pointing out the stylistic similarity between the Processional cross’s Christus patiens and Pietro Lorenzetti’s Man of Sorrows, c.1330–45, tempera and gold leaf on wood, 32 x 52 cm, Staatliches Lindenau-Kunstmuseum, Altenburg. The latter work illustrates the currency of the image of a blond Christ in Tuscan art of the mid fourteenth century and potentially could be added to Daddi’s range of influences. The influence of Giotto in the Processional cross is not inconsistent with its attribution to Daddi. So strong is Giotto’s influence in Daddi’s works that it has been suggested Daddi may have spent time in Giotto’s workshop, although recent authors have been equivocal about this question in the absence of documentary evidence.11 For a discussion of Daddi’s inspiration by Giotto, see Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus [1930], ed. Miklós Boskovits & E. Neri Lusanna, sect. 3, The Fourteenth Century, vol. 3; The Works of Bernardo Daddi, Giunti, Florence, 1989, pp. 29–30. Erling Skaug (Punch Marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico: Attribution, Chronology, and Workshop Relationships in Tuscan Panel Painting with Particular Consideration to Florence, c. 1330–1430, 2 vols, IIC-Nordic Group, Norwegian Section, Oslo, 1994, vol. I, pp. 98–117 and vol. II, section 5.3) observed the common use of punches and brocade patterns by Giotto and Daddi without concluding whether Daddi worked in Giotto’s studio.
Despite the influence of Giotto, the most direct stylistic analogies for the Processional cross are found in the works of Bernardo Daddi. Another Processional cross of similar form and style was sold at Sotheby’s in London in 1998 with an attribution to Daddi proposed by Boskovits.12 See Offner, 2001, pp. 560–63. The Melbourne Processional cross differs from that example in having three terminal trefoils; these provide further evidence for the attribution to Daddi. The Evangelists in the trefoils appear to be standing behind parapets, over the edges of which rest scrolls covered in mock black text. This is an unusual depiction considering that the half-length depiction of a human subject in front of a parapet is most familiar from fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century portraiture. An explanation for the arrangement, however, may be found in the more extensive compositions of the Evangelists in trefoils in the Martello collection in Fiesole, which have been attributed to Daddi or his workshop since they were first published in 1989.13 ibid., pp. 327–9, pls 292–3. Two similar Evangelists in trefoils in the Bruno Lorenzelli Collection in 1962 (pp. 330–2), attributed variously to Daddi or his workshop, also show scrolls lying over the edges of writing desks. Here the ‘parapets’ are seen to be the tops of writing desks.
Particularly distinctive is the gesture of the Evangelist in the right terminal trefoil of the Processional cross: his right hand in the air with two fingers pointing towards himself as though gesturing while mentally recounting the story of the Gospel. This is virtually identical with the depiction of an Evangelist in one of the Martello collection trefoils (figs 4 & 5), even if the latter, larger work contains more and clearer details, such as the horn inkwell and the regular perspective of the desktop. A variation of this composition is found in the rightmost pinnacle trefoil of the Gambier–Parry collection polyptych at Highnam Court, Gloucester, attributed to Daddi and his workshop,14 See Offner, 1989, pp. 324–39, pl. 1910. and in the gable of the Saint Mary Magdalen and an Evangelist now attributed to Daddi, possibly painted with the assistance of his workshop, which was sold at Sotheby’s in London in 1998.15 See Offner, 2001, pp. 583–5. The repetition of these images of the Evangelist suggests that Daddi may have kept a number of drawings in his workshop to serve as models for his numerous commissions requiring this subject.
Assessing the quality of execution in the Processional cross is made difficult by its abraded and slightly dirty surface. Furthermore, there are few similar small works in Daddi’s oeuvre for comparison. On the side with the Christus triumphans, the style seems broadly comparable with that of Daddi’s slightly larger Crucifixion in the Staatliches Lindenau-Kunstmuseum in Altenburg, commonly dated to around 1340, near the end of the artist’s career.16 See Offner, 1989, pp. 308–11. The head of an Evangelist looking upwards in the Processional cross finds a close companion in the head of the centurion in the Crucifixion (figs 6 & 7). The tooling of the haloes in the two works also bears close comparison: Christ’s halo in the Processional cross Christus triumphans has a ring of small, circular punchmarks around a ring of larger circular punchmarks; the latter with punched stippling in the background. The punchwork in the Christus patiens is similar, save for the use of ring-shaped punches in the inner register. This, though, is virtually identical with the punchwork in the halo of the saint holding the Virgin’s hand in the Altenburg Crucifixion (figs 8 & 9). This style of punchwork was also frequently employed by the Master of the Fabriano Altarpiece in his smaller works.17 See, for example, the punchwork in the haloes of the Virgin and Child with Saints Julian and Michael and two Angels and Crucifixion wings of a triptych in the City of York Art Gallery, attributed to Puccio di Simone (Offner, 2001, pp. 518–20) . This anonymous artist has been identified by some scholars as the documented painter Puccio di Simone, and the strong influences of Daddi in his works has led to the suggestion that he may have spent time in Daddi’s workshop.18 See Skaug, Punch Marks, vol. 1, pp. 136–42 and vol. 2, sect. 6.1.
If the overall design of the Melbourne Processional cross can be attributed to Daddi, it seems likely that he received some assistance from his workshop in its execution. The painting of the Christus patiens is a little less assured than that of the Christus triumphans. In the former, the features of Christ’s face are weaker and the shading around the chest and waist less volumetric than in the latter, but similar in quality to the Crucifixion by the Master of the Fabriano Altarpiece/Puccio di Simone in the National Gallery of Art in Washington.19 See Offner, 2001, pp. 468–70. Supporting the idea that the two sides of the Processional cross were worked on by different artists is the subtle difference in the punchwork of the haloes already noted.
Processional crosses
Processional crosses may be made of painted wood, metal sheets covering a wooden core, solid metal, or occasionally crystal, and are used as accessories to the mass, as well as in a variety of religious rituals inside and outside churches. For the mass, they are usually carried to the altar at the beginning and carried away at the end, to signify the presence of Christ during the liturgy. In the Middle Ages processional crosses were also commonly used in rituals surrounding death. A processional cross could be taken to the house of a terminally ill person, to be held to their face during the absolution and last rites, then borne in the procession taking their body to church, and later in the procession to the place of burial.20 For an excellent discussion of the history and varied uses of processional crosses, see Colum Hourihane, The Processional Cross in Late Medieval England: The ‘Dallye Cross’, Society of Antiquaries of London, London, 2005, pp. 6–50. Certain processional crosses served a particular purpose, as images for the contemplation and consolation of criminals condemned to death. An example is Daddi’s Processional cross in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan, distinguished from the Melbourne cross by its inclusion of images of decapitated saints bleeding profusely – which may seem a peculiar source of consolation to the modern mind.21 See Ciatti.
Imagery
Though relatively rare now, the Christus triumphans image was common in Italian medieval art.22 See Evelyn Sandberg-Vavalà, La Croce dipinta italiana e l’iconografia della Passione, Multigrafica, Rome, 1980, pp. 501–664 for the iconography of the Christus triumphans in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and pp. 673–887 for the iconography of the Christus patiens in the thirteenth. The Gospel of John (19:33–4) states that Christ was already dead when a soldier pierced his side with a spear, miraculously producing issues of blood and water. Thus, the Christus triumphans depiction of a living Christ with blood flowing from a wound in his side shows a revival on the cross after death that is contrary to John. There is no basis for it in Matthew, Mark or Luke either, although Matthew (27:52–3) does record that, following Christ’s death, the earth quaked, opening graves in which saints arose from their sleep. Following Christ’s Resurrection these saints went into the Holy City. Thus, even before recounting the events of Christ’s Resurrection proper, this Gospel introduces into the story of the Passion the idea of the Crucifixion heralding triumph over death.
It is generally agreed that the Christus patiens image began to predominate in the West from the thirteenth century, contemporary with the increasing emphasis placed on the veneration of Christ’s suffering during the Passion by the Franciscans.23 See Viladesau, pp. 112–13. Apart from the ex-Sotheby’s Processional cross, relatively few processional crosses show a combination of Christus patiens and Christus triumphans images. Other instances are the cross attributed to Giunta Pisano or a close follower in the Fondazione Cini, in Venice,24 See Angelo Tartuferi, Giunta Pisano, Edizioni dei Soncino, 1991, p. 98. and the Processional cross attributed to Neri di Bicci in the University of Michigan Museum of Art.
It is interesting that Pisano, one of the artists in whose work the transition to the predominance of the Christus patiens occurs (importantly, in 1236 he was commissioned to paint a now lost cross for the basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi thought to have been of the Christus patiens type),25 See Belting, p. 145. Although Tartuferi (p. 11) has pointed out that Giunta Pisano cannot be credited with the introduction of the Christus patiens image, as have some other authors. may also have executed or influenced a cross combining this image with a Christus triumphans. One author has described this as a work demonstrating the complementarity of the two image types.26 See Viladesau, pp. 112–13. This requires some explanation, although here is not the place for an extended discursus on crucifixion iconography.
The very similar pattern of blood dripping from Christ’s feet on both sides of the Melbourne Processional cross suggests that the painting of the two sides was coordinated to achieve a degree of consistency of appearance. Thus, the differences between the two depictions may be meaningful iconographically as well as in terms of authorship. If it is not absolutely certain which side of the Processional cross was meant to be seen first, there are indications that it was the Christus patiens. Clearly, Christ must have died before he could be revived. Furthermore, the Christus patiens is flanked by witnesses to the Crucifixion – the Virgin and John the Evangelist (John 19:25–6 states that the Virgin and a disciple were present at the Crucifixion) – while the Christus triumphans is flanked by Evangelists in the act of writing. Chronologically, the former witnesses come before the latter, which is to say that Christ was crucified, and then the story of his Passion was recorded by the Evangelists. The perceived transition from the Christus patiens to the Christus triumphans as the cross passed the viewer in a procession would accentuate the Passion iconography, as though the viewer witnessed Christ overcoming death.
It may be, therefore, that the iconographic program of the Melbourne Processional cross was meant to show Christ in revival, spiritual as much as physi-cal, to signify that, with the Crucifixion, he offered the promise of eternal life, at that moment and for all time. The form of the Processional cross supports such an interpretation. The crockets along the edges of the cross seemingly allude to leaves or buds, and so to the cross as the lignum vitae, or Tree of Life. This derives from a doctrine representing the Crucifixion as a life-giving event.27 See Offner, 2001, p. 564 n. 2. Boskovits noted that the form of the outside of the Processional cross recalls the form of the late-thirteenth-century English Crucifix in Santa Maria Novella, Florence, which has carved leaves or buds along the edges of the cross. In the sixth century the bishop of Poitiers, Venantius Fortunatus, wrote the hymn Vexilla regis prodeunt for a procession to welcome a fragment of the true cross to his city. It is regarded as one of the most important hymns of the Middle Ages, and was still part of the Roman liturgy at the time the Melbourne Processional cross was made.28 See Joseph Szövérffy, Hymns of the Holy Cross: An Annotated Edition with Introduction, Classical Folia, Leyden, 1976, pp. 7–10 & 15–18. Since the Florentine liturgy closely followed the Roman example from 1310, it can be assumed the hymn was also sung in Florence for feasts of the Holy Cross and during Holy Week.29 For the 1310 reforms to the liturgy in Florence, bringing it close to the Roman model, see Marica S. Tacconi, Cathedral and Civic Ritual in Late Medieval and Renaissance Florence: The Service Books of Santa Maria del Fiore, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, pp. 69–71. The hymn compares the crucifix to a tree, citing David’s ‘God has reigned from a tree’, and ending with the verse: ‘Hail altar, hail victim, of the passion’s glory, by which life brought death to an end, and by death gave life again’.30 This is the translation given in Viladesau, pp. 37–8. Such imagery corresponds well with the Processional cross depiction of Christ’s Passion and overcoming of death.
Dr Hugh Hudson, Honorary Research Fellow, Art History, University of Melbourne (in 2012).
Notes
1 Leonard Cox, The National Gallery of Victoria, 1861 to 1968: A Search for a Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1970, p. 283.
2 Ursula Hoff (ed.), European Paintings before 1800 in the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1995, p. 164.
3 See Richard Offner & Klara Steinweg, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting [1945], ed. Miklós Boskovits & Mina Gregori, sect. 3, The Fourteenth Century, vol. 5, Bernardo Daddi and his Circle, Giunti, Florence, 2001, pp. 564–8, citing a suggestion of Everett Fahy of 31 March 1997.
4 See Gordon Morrison, ‘Italy, Florence, Processional cross’, in Ted Gott & Laurie Benson (eds), Paintings and Sculpture before 1800 in the International Collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2003, p. 9.
5 See Andrea Di Lorenzo, ‘La Croce astile di Bernardo Daddi del Museo Poldi Pezzoli’, in Marco Ciatti (ed.), La Croce di Bernardo Daddi del Museo Poldi Pezzoli: Ricerche e Conservazione, Edifir, Florence, 2005, p. 13. The attribution was also discussed by Dr Felicity Harley in her paper ‘The Florentine Processional cross in the National Gallery of Victoria: a new attribution?’, The Medieval Round Table, University of Melbourne, 3 September 2007. I am grateful to Felicity Harley for discussing her research on the Processional cross with me.
6 The identification of the figure in the upper trefoil cannot be determined precisely. While Christ is frequently depicted with a cruciform halo in medieval and Renaissance art, in the fourteenth century God the Father was occasionally also represented this way. An example of this type of depiction is found in the illumination Trinity and Evangelist symbols on fol. 33 of the Book of Hours, called Yates Thompson 13, in the British Library, London, dating to the second quarter of the fourteenth century. Another example is in the illumination God the Father warning Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil on fol. 5 of the Speculum humanae salvationis, called Harley 3240, also in the British Library, dating from the last quarter of the century. It is probably significant that the figure at the top of Giotto’s Crucifix from the Scrovegni Chapel shows the palm of the right hand to the viewer, while no stigmatum is visible. Thus, this figure cannot be the Risen Christ. It seems somewhat more likely, then, that the figures at the top of the Scrovegni Chapel and Melbourne crosses are God the Father in heaven, rather than a second depiction of Christ.
7 For discussion of the Christus triumphans (or Christus victor) and Christus patiens types of images, see Hans Belting, The Image and Its Public in the Middle Ages: Form and Function of Early Paintings of the Passion, trans. Mark Bartusis & Richard Meyer, A.D. Caratzas, New York, 1990, p. 143–8; John T. Paoletti & Gary M. Radke (eds), Art in Renaissance Italy, 3rd edn, Laurence King, London, 2005, pp. 50–2; and Richard Viladesau, The Beauty of the Cross: The Passion of Christ in Theology and the Arts, from the Catacombs to the Eve of the Renaissance, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, pp. 41–7, 69, 74 & 112.
8 Although there is no physical or documentary evidence for a lost trefoil containing an Evangelist at the bottom of the Processional cross, the ubiquitous depiction of four Evangelists in medieval art makes it almost a certainty.
9 See Belting, pp. 144–5.
10 I am grateful to one of the anonymous referees for pointing out the stylistic similarity between the Processional cross’s Christus patiens and Pietro Lorenzetti’s Man of Sorrows, c.1330–45, tempera and gold leaf on wood, 32 x 52 cm, Staatliches Lindenau-Kunstmuseum, Altenburg. The latter work illustrates the currency of the image of a blond Christ in Tuscan art of the mid fourteenth century and potentially could be added to Daddi’s range of influences.
11 For a discussion of Daddi’s inspiration by Giotto, see Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus [1930], ed. Miklós Boskovits & E. Neri Lusanna, sect. 3, The Fourteenth Century, vol. 3; The Works of Bernardo Daddi, Giunti, Florence, 1989, pp. 29–30. Erling Skaug (Punch Marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico: Attribution, Chronology, and Workshop Relationships in Tuscan Panel Painting with Particular Consideration to Florence, c. 1330–1430, 2 vols, IIC-Nordic Group, Norwegian Section, Oslo, 1994, vol. I, pp. 98–117 and vol. II, section 5.3) observed the common use of punches and brocade patterns by Giotto and Daddi without concluding whether Daddi worked in Giotto’s studio.
12 See Offner, 2001, pp. 560–63.
13 ibid., pp. 327–9, pls 292–3. Two similar Evangelists in trefoils in the Bruno Lorenzelli Collection in 1962 (pp. 330–2), attributed variously to Daddi or his workshop, also show scrolls lying over the edges of writing desks.
14 See Offner, 1989, pp. 324–39, pl. 1910.
15 See Offner, 2001, pp. 583–5.
16 See Offner, 1989, pp. 308–11.
17 See, for example, the punchwork in the haloes of the Virgin and Child with Saints Julian and Michael and two Angels and Crucifixion wings of a triptych in the City of York Art Gallery, attributed to Puccio di Simone (Offner, 2001, pp. 518–20).
18 See Skaug, Punch Marks, vol. 1, pp. 136–42 and vol. 2, sect. 6.1.
19 See Offner, 2001, pp. 468–70.
20 For an excellent discussion of the history and varied uses of processional crosses, see Colum Hourihane, The Processional Cross in Late Medieval England: The ‘Dallye Cross’, Society of Antiquaries of London, London, 2005, pp. 6–50.
21 See Ciatti.
22 See Evelyn Sandberg-Vavalà, La Croce dipinta italiana e l’iconografia della Passione, Multigrafica, Rome, 1980, pp. 501–664 for the iconography of the Christus triumphans in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and pp. 673–887 for the iconography of the Christus patiens in the thirteenth.
23 See Viladesau, pp. 112–13.
24 See Angelo Tartuferi, Giunta Pisano, Edizioni dei Soncino, 1991, p. 98.
25 See Belting, p. 145. Although Tartuferi (p. 11) has pointed out that Giunta Pisano cannot be credited with the introduction of the Christus patiens image, as have some other authors.
26 See Viladesau, pp. 112–13.
27 See Offner, 2001, p. 564 n. 2. Boskovits noted that the form of the outside of the Processional cross recalls the form of the late-thirteenth-century English Crucifix in Santa Maria Novella, Florence, which has carved leaves or buds along the edges of the cross.
28 See Joseph Szövérffy, Hymns of the Holy Cross: An Annotated Edition with Introduction, Classical Folia, Leyden, 1976, pp. 7–10 & 15–18.
29 For the 1310 reforms to the liturgy in Florence, bringing it close to the Roman model, see Marica S. Tacconi, Cathedral and Civic Ritual in Late Medieval and Renaissance Florence: The Service Books of Santa Maria del Fiore, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, pp. 69–71.
30 This is the translation given in Viladesau, pp. 37–8.